


After Rattleby

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, OFC - Freeform, OMC - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-08-25
Updated: 1996-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:10:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1900170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To be read after After Manhattan. With so few questions answered, and their friend still in danger, Mulder and Scully try to piece together the mystery of what really happened in Arizona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Rattleby

_NICAP Regional Headquarters_  
Baltimore, MD  
September 21, 1996  
3:21 PM

David Yul sat puzzled, patiently transcribing his interview tapes for the day. The thing that was puzzling him was a timid young experiencer named Hal Kildan.

Hal had come to David once, a few months ago, interested in finding out about the usual signs that pointed to abduction. The young man had been slightly stand-offish at first, worried that David would take him as a crackpot, as many others so obviously had.

But he'd loosened up as David started talking to him, asking him whether he'd had any recurrent health problems--nosebleeds, phantom pains in his stomach or chest... little things like that. He also asked if Hal had been experiencing particularly vivid dreams. Had he had problems with relationships? Was he developing any intense reactions to previously innocuous objects?

Hal's answers were resoundingly yes, and he seemed absolutely incredulous that he had finally found someone who knew exactly the questions to ask. Their interview had lasted several hours, and Hal had gone away with David's hearty assurance that he was  _not_  insane, along with the names of a couple of competent hypnoregression therapists that had helped friends of David's in the past.

This morning, Hal had suddenly appeared again. He had heard from a mutual friend about the cataloging David had been trying to get through for the past three years. Given the number of experiencers Yul met on a daily basis, he felt it would be useful to create a database of sorts, that could be used by possible abductees who were searching for help.

Given the assistance that he'd recieved from Yul, Hal decided that he wanted to be a part of this database, and offered to let David catalog the experiences that the regression therapy had helped him uncover.

David wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't what he got.

 

Hal recounted the hours leading up to his abduction with perfect clarity. This wasn't too unusual, though many people tended to let the pain and horror of the abduction itself wipe away hours of time, both before they were taken, and after they were returned.

What struck David as strange--even slightly suspicious--was the clarity with which Hal remembered the experience itself. He could describe the room around him in vivid detail, could recall, almost word for word, what the greys had said to him...

An hour into the interview, David finally looked at the young man before him with candid eyes.

"Hal..." He was going to have to proceed cautiously. So many of the experiencers that he met had been laughed at for so long that they would fly off the handle at the mere suspicion that they might be lying. He decided to start with the easy questions.

"Have you had a chance to read any books on abduction?"

Hal shrugged. "Not really. I read that one by Mack, but it didn't strike me as being very accurate."

"How so?"

"Well," Hal replied, sitting back a little. "Some of the observations were spot on, but I think he never tried to tell the whole story."

David nodded briefly at the deliberately vague answer. "You've been seeing a therapist?"

At that, Hal broke into a huge grin. "Yeah, a Dr. Litting. He's fantastic."

"Litting?" David asked quietly. "I don't think I'm familiar with him."

Hal shrugged. "He's a great therapist. He's really helped me find out what's going on."

"Where did you hear about him?"

"I had a friend on the net," Hal replied easily. "He said Litting had tried to help a friend of his." Hal's eyes darkened suddenly. "Guess I should be glad I went to see the doctor when I did... I guess this other guy was so torn up by what happened to him that he eventually commited suicide."

David concluded the interview shortly thereafter, determining to find out what he could about this Dr. Litting. Hal's recall was so complete that it almost had to be planted. And if this doctor was trying to undermine the UFO community's work by filling actual experiencers' heads with garbage...

It took a while to find out where this doctor was located. Hal had been surprisingly vague on the point, saying that he'd contacted the man by phone a few times, but that all the therapy sessions were actually performed at Hal's own house. That in itself was strange enough for David to want to investigate.

Among the many calls he made that night was a terse phone message to a close friend in the FBI. Fox Mulder rarely worked openly with the UFO community, preferring to protect his job and his tenuous anonymity by associating with only a few select leaders of the local investigatory groups.

David was one of those select few, and the occassional information that he and Mulder had exchanged in the last few years had proven extremely helpful for both of them. David was sure that if anyone could help him track down this doctor, it was Mulder.

Unfortunately, Mulder wasn't home.

Luckily, one of David's contacts at MUFON had heard about the good doctor, and was able to give him the man's office address.

With a determined look on his face, David headed for Alexandria...

* * *

 _Dulles International Airport_  
Washington, D.C.  
September 22, 1996  
3:15 PM

Sal Menschner's homecoming had all the pomp and circumstance of the boys coming home from the war. All that was missing was that big brass band--but, then, there was enough brass to go around anyway.

As she stepped off the plane, hovering protectively at Sal's side, Dana Scully was again amazed at the number of people Sal Menschner touched, simply by being Sal. Skinner was there with his wife, worried smiles on both of their faces as the girl they'd all but adopted as their own walked shakily into the terminal. Her father, Mulder, a dozen men that Scully had rarely seen, except to be dressed down by them in some hearing or other...

And standing quietly to the side, managing somehow to be nearly invisible despite his six-and-a-half foot height, stood Brian Callahan.

Sal received each of them with a sheepish grin, a little astounded by the turnout. When she reached Brian, however, all shyness fell away, and she grabbed him desperately, wrapping fierce arms around him in greeting. "I missed you," she whispered.

Her father watched the display with a mild look of displeasure. It was no secret that he didn't think much of the rich, bluff, young giant who had snagged his daughter. Scully almost smiled. Mike Menschner would never think any man was good enough for Sal--just like a quiet old navy captain Scully had once known...

The party broke up quickly, startling Sal as much in its swiftness as it had in its affection. She was left alone with her father and her young friends, Scully and Mulder standing off to one side while her father hovered solicitously.

"Exactly what happened, young lady?" her father asked gruffly, managing to seem angry, despite the joy in his eyes.

Sal looked over to him from where she stood, wrapped safely in Brian's arms. "Can we talk about it at your house, Daddy?" she asked with a sigh. "I could use a cup of hot tea right now."

"And a cigarette, I'll bet," her father added, his stern words holding less and less power as his smile grew.

"Gave 'em up, Dad," she said, smiling at his shock. "Though I didn't  _really_  have much choice."

As her eyes darkened at her own quip, her father shifted uneasily. "All right, May," he finally said quietly. "Let's get your suitcases and get you home." His invitation clearly did not include Brian Callahan, and the giant tightened his hold on Sal defensively.

Surprisingly, Sal simply looked up at her lover with a sad, embarassed grin, and slid carefully from his arms. "I'll call you later," she whispered, as she dropped a loving kiss on his cheek. Brian was left to ponder her uncharacteristic snubbing as she walked away.

* * *

It was no surprise to Mulder that Scully was keen to find out what he had learned while she'd been keeping an eye on Sal in Arizona. Scully hadn't trusted that Sal would be all right on her own--more because of threats from without than the obvious threats from within. Sal had shown no inclination to finish the job she'd started on that fire escape in Rattleby, but Scully wasn't sure that the people who'd sent the young pathologist there in the first place wouldn't come to finish it for her. She'd been happy to stay and keep an eye on her healing friend, but two weeks was a long time to be so out of the loop.

Mulder had been calling her frequently, with updates on the case, so there was really very little to catch her up on. Predictably, Goldman had been found dead in his house in Baltimore the night Mulder and Scully had departed for Arizona. If the people they suspected really  _were_  behind this operation, they knew they didn't take well to betrayal.

The cassettes that Mulder had salvaged from the burning trashcan were close to useless, the magnetic tape so damaged by the intense heat and melted plastic as to be all but unuseable. The only thing that  _could_  be gained from them was a brief snatch of one of Kauthen's chilling commands to her: "all of the evidence would have to be destroyed, Sally. Do you understand?  _All_  of it..."

Mulder hadn't been able to dig up much more on Kauthen. The psychiatrist had been in the areas of some fifteen suicides across the country, but he couldn't be tied to any of them. Between them, Brian and Mulder had exhausted every contact that either of them had, and they had still come up with nothing.

Scully looked over at Brian, as Mulder finished his catalog of their defeats. The blond giant looked exhausted himself, his eyes red and puffy, his face drawn. Sal had made Mulder promise to keep the older agent in D.C. while she was in the hospital, and Scully could see that it had torn him apart.

She'd talked to Sal about it, as her friend got stronger, but all the younger woman would say was that she didn't think he really needed to see her this way. So Mulder and Scully had respected her wishes dubiously, and Mulder had convinced Brian that there was time enough to see her when she got home.

"So they just get away with it again," Scully observed fatalistically. She didn't like it--she  _never_  liked it--but it was as inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning. The syndicate would  _always_  get away with it.

* * *

In a darkened room in the Pentagon, a man smoked his cigarette thoughtfully as he heard the news about Salome Menschner's joyous homecoming. He'd figured out exactly what would be done about the young woman.

It was so perfect a plan that it could not possibly fail...

* * *

 _Michael Menschner's Residence_  
Alexandria, VA  
6:15 PM

Sal sat quietly in her father's kitchen, staring into her teacup as if it held the answers she sought.

"Are you sure you're okay, honey?" her father asked, backing off in surprise as her head snapped up so her eyes could glare at him. She'd heard that word--"honey"--too many times in the last month and a half to be comfortable with it now.

At the hurt look in her father's eyes, however, she immediately calmed down, giving him an embarassed grin. "I'm sorry, Daddy... Yeah, I'm okay," she assured him with a sigh. "Just tired."

"Why don't you go upstairs and get some sleep, then," he suggested gently. "I'll get your bags from the car."

She shook her head, rising. "If you can just take me home, Dad, I'll be out of your hair."

The sterness she'd been so afraid of as a child flashed in his eyes, and Sal was amazed to find herself scared by it again. She'd changed since she'd left D.C., she realised.

And she didn't like it.

"Can't I just have you under my roof for a night or two, young lady?" he asked briskly, the frightened look in her eyes worrying him. When he spoke again, it was with the quiet, sad tone he'd used in the months after his dear wife's death. "You've just had a... a hard time.... and..."

Sal smiled at him, more shyly than she had since she was a girl. "Okay, Dad. But just a few days. I need to get back to the apartment. Psycho is probably thinking he'll have to live with Dana forever. And  _trust_  me, that's a fate worse than death for a cat..." Again, her face darkened suddenly, as she damned herself for her own phrasing.

Death had been far too much on her mind of late....

* * *

She woke at one-thirty, her body still on mountain time, her mind still working off of her secret schedule in Arizona. She sighed, contemplating rolling over and going back to sleep. Without her cigarettes to draw her out into the night, she found that one-thirty was an obscene time to be awake.

However, she thought suddenly, rising from her bed and slipping into a pair of sweatpants, this would be the perfect time to catch up on some long-neglected business...

Sneaking downstairs carefully, as she had done often when she lived with her father, she slid the porch door open silently as she grabbed her cellphone, stepping out and reaching back to close that door, lest her voice on the phone reach him in his room at the top of the stairs.

A deep, beautifully sleepy voice greeted her after only one ring. "Hello... Callahan."

"Hi, Brian," she said quietly.

"Sal?" She heard instant worry in his voice, and almost scowled at it. Almost. Aside from the occassional calls to keep up her cover back in D.C., she hadn't spoken with him in six weeks. She'd take the overprotectiveness, if only to hear his voice.

"What's wrong?" he asked into the silence that her thoughts had bred.

"Nothing," she replied quickly. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"At one-thirty in the morning?"

Sal smiled coyly, the smile stretching to her voice. "Well, you know how my dad  _hates_  you," she teased lightly. "I just thought I'd save myself a lecture."

Brian relaxed. "Yeah," he agreed, subtly bringing up her snubbing earlier that day. "He stole you right out from under my nose this afternoon."

"I'm sorry, Bri," she sighed, sitting quietly on the patio, crossing her legs and wincing slightly as the action pulled at her stitches. "I just... God, all I needed was a fight with him today, you know?"

"So you're really okay?" Brian asked cautiously.

"You know what I'm going to do?" Sal asked briskly in answer. "I'm going to get a t-shirt printed up: 'I'm doing fine, thanks.' Then I won't have to go hoarse saying it."

"But I wouldn't be able to see it, Sal-o-mine," Brian remarked, laughter in his voice. "I'm on the phone."

"Well, you won't have to be for long," she returned, rising suddenly. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll be over."

"Sneaking out of your Dad's house, Miss Menschner?" Brian asked coyly. "I could turn you in for that."

"Oh sure," she replied, sounding more her old self. "Or, you could just shoot _yourself_  in the head, and save my dad the trouble." She smiled at his chuckle. "I'll be over in a few," she said, disconnecting the call as she reached for the door.

She didn't have a chance to open it before the phone rang again...

* * *

 _Callahan Residence_  
Alexandria, VA  
2:31 AM

Brian was pacing by the time Sal showed up at his apartment, almost an hour later.

"What took you so long?" he asked immediately.

"I had to make sure Dad was asleep," she said quietly, walking up to him in the half-light of his living room, a coy look of lust on her face.

Brian enfolded her carefully, wary of her stitches. He breathed deeply, and suddenly frowned, though the action held no real irritation. "Have you been smoking again?"

Sal gave him a look, as she pulled away slightly. "My clothes must still smell of it," she said after a blank moment. "It'll probably take a year to air them all out."

Brian shrugged at the answer. She wasn't reeking of the things, and he remembered all too well how long it had taken before  _his_  wardrobe smelled smoke-free when he'd cut down to nearly nothing five years ago. He looked down at her again, smiling lightly as he lead her to the couch, sprawling out on the soft cushions and setting her gently on top of his now-reclining form.

"So how's Daddy?" he asked, still a spark of irritation for her earlier rejection.

She ignored the question, preferring to curl up in his embrace, as she'd been dreaming of doing for the last six weeks. She turned in his arms, her stomach now lying on top of his own, and looked up at him, kissing him lightly. "Did I tell you I missed you?"

He returned the display, still holding her gently... Still afraid she might break. "I think you did, as I remember..."

"Well, I'm telling you again," she said, smothering him with all the kisses she'd saved up while she'd been in Rattleby.

* * *

 _J. Edgar Hoover Building_  
Washington, D.C.  
September 23, 1996  
9:15 AM

Mulder sat at his desk, feeling the comfortable presence of his partner in her own chair across the room. He'd missed her while she'd been away, which only served to bring to mind how much Brian must have missed Sal when she was gone. Scully was just his partner, and two weeks seemed an eternity not to be able to talk to her face to face. Brian had gone nearly two months away from the woman he loved--without the assurance that she was all right.

He looked up from his files as Scully's phone rang, and she leaned over to answer it. "Scully... Yes... Okay, we'll be right up, Kimberly."

Mulder looked at her questioningly as she rose.

"Skinner wants to see us," she said quietly, slipping her suit jacket back on in preparation for the meeting.

* * *

_9:30 AM_

Skinner glanced up as they entered, a distracted look on his face. "Agent Scully," he said in greeting. "Welcome back. I wanted to thank you for everything you did for May."

Scully shrugged demurely, and, without a word, took a seat before the man's desk, with Mulder following suit.

"A case just came across my desk," Skinner explained, passing the file to Mulder. "I thought you'd be interested... There have been three strange suicides in Baltimore in the last few days." He smiled grimly as Mulder opened the case file and looked up at him in shock. "I thought they'd look familiar."

The case file was topped by three crime scene photos, each showing a dead man, each of them with a bullet in his brain and a blissful smile on his face. One of them, Mulder recognised.

David Yul had been the head of NICAP's Baltimore division for fifteen years, and Mulder had come to know him well as the FBI agent had sifted through numerous UFO sightings since he'd taken on the X-Files. Dave had been a friend--and a good one.

He remembered, suddenly, that brief message on his answering machine the day before yesterday--a simple "Hey, Mulder, it's Dave. Call me back." sort of thing. He hadn't had a chance to return it yet.

He'd never have the chance at all now.

"Any signs of theft?" Mulder asked, as he passed the file to his partner.

"Only in the case of a man named Yul," he nodded as Mulder gestured that he had known the man. "He was found dead in his office, the wound obviously self-inflicted. But all of his files have gone missing. An employee stated that she had seen him earlier in the day, and that he hadn't seemed upset or disturbed in any way."

"Had he been undergoing any form of psychotherapy?" Mulder was fairly sure he hadn't. Dave would have told him something like that.

Skinner shook his head. "Not that we could determine." He leaned forward, his eyes intense. "I want to be kept fully informed on this investigation, Agent Mulder," he asked pointedly. "If we have a chance to find out what's going on here..."

Mulder simply nodded as he and Scully quit the room.

* * *

_Yul Residence  
3:43 PM_

Jena Yul looked worn-out, a haunted glaze to her eyes telling the agents that she probably hadn't slept since her husband had been found. She greeted Mulder with a tired hug, showing the two of them into her living room.

"Jena," Mulder said quietly. "I'm sorry about Dave."

A light came into the woman's eyes, and she turned on him. "David had no reason to kill himself, Mulder. He wouldn't have done it."

Mulder nodded sadly. "I know, Jena," he replied. "That's why Agent Scully and I are here." He explained, as well as confidentiality allowed, the circumstances behind the case, and his feeling that Dave Yul was most likely  _driven_  to kill himself. At that, Jena blanched.

"But who would want to..."

"Jena," Mulder broke in carefully. "Dave called me the night before last and left a message. Do you know what he might have been calling about?"

She nodded quietly. "He was trying to dig up some information on a psychiatrist named... Litting, I think."

"What kind of information?"

"David been interviewing an experiencer. He was a little suspicious, because the man had almost total recall."

Scully looked at her partner questioningly, and he explained. "Even under hypnosis, an abductee rarely remembers  _everything_  that happened." His voice turned quiet, remembering the wealth of unanswered questions that his own hypnotherapy had left him with. "It's usually just vague impressions..."

Jena nodded sadly in agreement. "Anyway, David was trying to track this doctor down. He thought that maybe Litting was trying to undermine the community's work... Trying to cloud the issue by planting false memories..."

"So he found this doctor?" Mulder asked, a stern look to his partner, warning her to keep her ideas about alien abductions to herself. He needn't have bothered. Scully wasn't about to upset this poor woman any more by voicing her suspicion that  _all_  alien abduction memories were false.

"I don't know," Jena replied quietly. "He called me at about four that day, telling me a little about what was going on. He was going to call around and see what he could find out, and didn't think he'd... be home for a while." Her eyes turned red as the tears she'd been holding in finally came loose. "That was the last I heard until they... called me..."

* * *

 _Sal Menschner's Residence_  
Baltimore, MD  
6:45 PM

Sal sat on her deck quietly, thinking things over. She itched for a cigarette, but the stay in the hospital down in Arizona had finally gotten her through the physical withdrawals she'd been feeling for the last week that she'd lived in Rattleby, and she decided once and for all to kick the habit.

She was still puzzled by what Brian had said about smelling smoke on her clothes. Did she really  _still_  reek of cigarettes? Maybe she should get her whole wardrobe cleaned if that was the case.

She sat back happily. God, it was good to be home. Her father had been livid when she'd called him this morning, letting him know that Brian was going to drop her off at her apartment, and that she'd be by later in the day to pick up her things. She had left him a note when she'd gone out last night, so he hadn't been exactly frantic about why she wasn't there when he woke up in the morning. But he just plain did  _not_  approve of Brian, and the thought of his daughter spending the night with the man had probably set his ears to burning.

Still, she kept firm to the knowledge that she wanted Brian in her life. Her father would, eventually, simply have to live with that, whether he liked it or not.

She sighed, smiling as she heard a scratching at the screen door, and a deep tom's meow that demanded she answer him. "Hey, Psycho," she whispered, as she slid the door open. The old black-and-white looked up at his mistress, still managing to seem slightly annoyed at her for leaving him for so long.

"I know," she said quietly, picking him up, careful of her still splinted left hand, grunting at the way his sixteen-pound bulk punished her still-healing stomach. "I know, I'm terrible, huh? I leave you all alone, with no one but Aunt Dana to take care of you..."

She stroked him patiently until he began to purr, his vibrations running through her chest where he lay. They sat like that for a number of minutes, Sal just trying to get used to the idea that she was finally home to stay.

"Do you want some food, Psych?" She rose finally, letting him drop languidly to the ground beside her. "Come on, baby... Let's go get some food, huh?"

She walked into her kitchen, opening one of the higher cabinets and taking out a can of catfood. Opening it one-handed was more difficult than she'd imagined it would be, and it took her some time to figure out. She knew that Psycho was terribly spoiled--could have survived quite well on dry food--but she'd had him since she moved out of her father's home, and the cat had become her constant companion.

The old tom sat at her feet and yowled, occassionally climbing his front paws up the cabinet beside her, anxious for yet another form of affection from his owner. He yowled again, almost angrily, as the phone rang.

"Hang on, Psych," she said irritably as she walked over him on her way to the phone, leaving the task of opening his dinner only half-finished.

"Hello, Menschner," she announced, still a slight smile on her face as she watched her cat contemplate his thwarted meal.

What she heard on the phone made her lose that grin quite quickly, and her grip tightened as the man on the other end said his piece.

* * *

 _J. Edgar Hoover Building_  
September 24, 1996  
8:15 AM

Mulder's face was troubled as Scully walked into the office the next morning. She assumed he was still brooding about his friend David's death. He had apparently been quite close to the man, though Scully had never met him.

"Hi," she said quietly, taking off her coat and draping it over one of the extra chairs in the office.

She'd guessed wrong about the reason behind Mulder's mood.

"We have a meeting at two," he told her dully.

"What for?"

"We've been ordered to appear as witnesses at Sal's OPC review."

* * *

_Meeting of the Office of Professional Conduct  
2:05 PM_

Sal Menschner sat, twisting her right hand over the bandages on her left in nervousness, as the OPC board finally convened. She'd seen a number of her friends sitting outside, waiting to be called in to testify, one by one. Brian had looked slightly ill, and her godfather had given her a look that said if he could have stopped this investigation, he would have.

But nothing Skinner would have said could have stopped the hearing, and Sal had known it the moment he called her about it last night.

She'd gone off to Arizona on what she'd later found out was an unauthorised investigation, and her own conduct toward the end had been less-than-becoming for an FBI agent.

Unfortunately, she still had the splint on her hand and the cane at her side, which would probably be all the evidence they needed to at least suspend her--if not boot her out altogether.

The man who was running the hearing was short--just Sal's height--and had unexceptional, loosely cropped, dark, curly hair. He sat on the opposite end of the long "interrogation" table from her, flanked by a number of other officials--all equally forgettable in appearance.

"This hearing is being convened to discuss the conduct of Agent Salome Menschner in the unauthorised investigation of one Dr. Darrell J. Kauthen, in Rattleby, Arizona." The man intoned. It sounded like a pronouncement of death to Sal.

* * *

She defended herself as best she could, pointing out that she  _had_  only been following the orders given her by a superior in the FBI. She tried to explain the circumstances surrounding her apparent suicide attempt, but all the excuses in the world sounded hollow--even to her--and she figured she might as well give up and pack her bags now.

Walter Skinner was the first one they interviewed, and the questions they asked him, as a superior who had overseen her conduct in at least a few cases, were thoroughly predictable, the aspertions the board cast on his claims, all but asked for.

"AD Skinner," the mop-headed man asked. "What is your assesment of Agent Menschner's conduct in past investigations?"

"She's an exellent researcher, and has provided a wealth of important information in a number of cases."

"So you're pleased with her work?"

"Very."

A tall man, looking young despite his salt-and-pepper hair, spoke up at this point. "But how... unbiased... can we assume your assessments to be, Mr. Skinner?"

 _Here it comes,_  Sal thought darkly.

"Excuse me?" Skinner asked, instantly combative.

"Well," the young man continued, calmly. "You  _are_  related to Agent Menschner in a way, are you not? You're her godfather... Known her all her life?"

Skinner's eyes narrowed. "Yes," he allowed quietly.

The man spread his hands. "Then how can we be sure that this is not her godfather speaking, instead of the Assistant Director, Mr. Skinner?"

Skinner fought the urge to stand. "As an employee of, and Assistant Director to, the FBI, I am sworn to tell the absolute truth in these proceedings," he announced stiffly. Sal was thankful that he never once turned to her. It would have weakened his position--which was already weak enough, thank you. "Speaking as the Assistant Director, and as a man who has supervised Agent Menschner, I can assure you that she is an exemplary agent."

The man in charge of the hearing had obviously heard enough, and sent Skinner from the room in short order. Only as he was leaving did Skinner come close to even noticing Sal's attendance. The look in his eyes as he passed her said it all: "I've done what they'd  _let_  me do for you."

* * *

Her direct supervisor came next, and the questions to him were less combative: What was she like when she was working? Was she good at her job? Was she ever shown to be defiant of authority? Quick to anger? Incapable of working with others? Had she ever lost her temper? Had that ever interfered with her ability to do her job?

Sal's stomach dropped suddenly, as she realised what they were trying to do. It was ingenious, really. Forget the fact that she'd taken part in an unlawful investigation, forget her assault on another agent...

There was an easier way to get to her.

When Dana Scully walked in, with a quick nod to her friend, Sal knew they had all the nails they needed to close up her coffin. Of all the people in the world to use against her...

"Agent Scully," the leader said calmly, as the petite redhead took the hotseat beside him. "I understand you were part of the group that recruited Agent Menschner out of Johns Hopkin's Medical School?"

"Yes, sir."

"And in your notes to the review board about her application to Quantico, you said you found her to be, and I quote, 'acutely inquisitive, and a naturally stable personality.' Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

Sal held her breath, certain of what would come next.

The leader of the hearing opened the file before him and held his glasses up to his face. The file was red-tabbed--an X-File.

Could you tell me the events surrounding Agent Menschner's admittance to Northeast Georgetown Medical Center on February 15th of 1995, Agent Scully?"

Scully tensed.

The curly-haired man continued. "Salome Menschner was admitted for knife wounds to her wrists, was she not?"

"Sir," Scully said quietly. "That case had a number of... unusual aspects to it."

"'Unusual...'" the man mused, looking further through the file. "The original assesment of her injuries was that she had attempted suicide, wasn't it?"

"Sir, if you'll read further--"

"Yes," he replied coldly. "The wounds were subsequently ruled 'hysterical hemorrhagia'?"

Sal felt the dirt dropping on her grave.

"Sir..."

"Answer the question, please, Agent Scully."

Scully was silent for a moment, gazing down the table at her friend. Her eyes dropped suddenly. "Yes, sir--But--"

"Thank you, Agent Scully," the man said briskly. "That will be all."

"But--" Scully broke in, almost desperately.

"That will be  _all,_  Agent Scully," he replied firmly.

* * *

The rest of the hearing was a mere formality. Sal sat quietly, knowing what the final verdict would be, and suddenly not really caring. So she was out of the FBI. Out on a pysch pension, no doubt, which meant that she'd never get a job as a doctor again. Not even inner city hospitals would take a psycho for so much as an ER nurse.

She smiled suddenly, though she kept it small, and the men at the other end of the table certainly didn't see it. The hidden joke was just too strong this time.

Psycho was owned by a psycho.

She realised dimly that this bad joke was only one more sign that she was  _truly_ losing it in this conference room. She suddenly, desperately, needed a cigarette.

She sighed, waiting for them to finish covering their asses. Waiting for them to decide that they had enough hard evidence to ensure that any appeal of their decision would be soundly denied.

That done, they asked her to stand, like a marine corporal dressed down before a courtmartial.

"It is the decision of this committee that Agent Salome Jennifer Menschner be released from further duty with the FBI, and that she undergo psychiatric treatment as mandated by code 657-1 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's retirement policies regarding termination due to psychological difficulties."

Sal tuned out the rest of his pronouncement, which covered the boring little details of how they would pay her a monthly check, since it was at least  _possible_ that her problems had been a direct result of her involvement in the FBI; she'd be given "thorough psychological help"--mandatory, of course--and would retain her right to all the perks entitled to a retiree of the federal government. _Blah, blah, blah..._

It struck her as slightly strange that, for now, she couldn't care less about their decision. Before she'd gone to Arizona, she would have fought them for all they were worth. Before Rattleby, she really would have cared.

Right now, she just wanted out.

"Would you like to make any statement, Miss Menschner?" The man who had so grilled Skinner suddenly asked.

Sal smiled coldly. "Miss" Menschner. She guessed she didn't rate an "Agent" anymore, did she?

"What do you want me to say?" she asked, calmly. "You've already made your decision. Hell--you'd already made it before I even walked in the door."

"Miss Menschner--" the man started to protest.

"Go ahead," she said coldly. "You can  _try_  to cover this up if you want. But what happened in Rattleby was  _not_  my fault... It was  _yours._ " She turned on her heel, halfway out the door as they tried to call her back. "Oh, don't worry," she told them, looking out into the hallway, seeing Brian's face fall at her words. "I'll make sure to give the guards my gun and badge."

And with that, Sal Menschner left the FBI.

* * *

An old man at the Pentagon smiled as he heard about ex-Agent Menschner's little scene before the OPC. Things were progressing well.

He had all the information he needed to keep her off balance until he could get to her.

All it ever took was a simple phone call...

* * *

 _< beep> _"Hey Sal... It's Brian... Listen, will you call me? Please?"

 _< beep> _"Sal, it's Dana... Listen, can I... Do you want to come over? Give me a call."

 _< beep> _"May, it's me." The Terror, Sal thought with a smile. He was still feeling guilty that he couldn't do anything to help her today. "Listen, I'm appealing the review--"

Sal jumped for the phone. "Walt, don't."

Walter Skinner frowned at her over the phone. "May," he objected. "Their claims don't have anything to back them up--"

"Have you seen Kosseff's report after what happened last winter?" Sal asked, referring to the case of so-called "hysterical hemorrhagia". "She  _already_  thought I was looney tunes. That incident just confirmed it for her."

"Well, there has to be something we can do," he said quietly.

Sal snorted derisively. "Just make sure my checks get to me on time," she said coldly, hanging up before he had a chance to reply.

She looked around her apartment tiredly, taking in the fine furniture, her own eclectic tastes reflected at every turn. Fuck them! She didn't care! The Bureau was trying to cover up Goldman's actions, and that was just fine with her. She didn't want to deal with it anymore.

Walking back out onto her deck with a loud sigh, she picked up her scotch and took a sip. She sat in her lawn chair, pulling out her cigarette case.

She'd replenished her stock after that farce they called an OPC hearing. After all, if her life was already ruined, a little lung cancer couldn't hurt. She looked at the cancer sticks blankly for a moment--imported English cigarettes. Very strong,  _very_  expensive. Snorting again, she took one out and lit it, inhaling deeply.

Much better.

She sat still for a moment, trying not to think of what she'd have to do next. What she  _wanted_  to do was screw the FBI thoroughly. But she'd never have the chance. So she guessed she'd just go on for a while, living off of her psych pay, until something came along.

It was a shame, really. She'd always wanted to work for the government. She didn't know why, exactly, but with a mother who had been a civil servant, and a father who'd been in the military, it just seemed the thing to do.

But now she knew that all of Mulder's gripes about the federal government were true. They were out to get their own.

And she was their latest casualty...

She sighed as her phone rang once again, not bothering to rise to answer it. The voice on the tape made her pause, however, her eyes glazing over slightly at the phrase that was spoken by a smoke-ruined old voice...

"Before Manhattan..."

* * *

_September 25, 1996  
9:15 AM_

"Hey, Dana," Brian Callahan called as he ducked his head to enter the basement office. "Have you heard from Sal?"

Dana Scully sighed as she looked up at him. "No, Bri," she replied. "And I don't think I'm likely to anytime soon." Her eyes darkened. "My testimony pretty much sealed her fate at the hearing."

Brian sat down before her desk. "Right, Dana," he replied. "Like you had a choice?" He sighed. "They would have forced her out anyway. The whole operation was an embarrassment that they couldn't admit to. And with Sal on a--" he nearly gagged on the word--"psych pension, nobody'll take her seriously if she  _does_  try to expose it."

"But they might take  _us_  seriously," Mulder said from the doorway. Scully and Callahan both turned to look at him, questions in their eyes.

"I called a couple of friends, and came up with some information on that doctor David had been looking for." He passed his partner the file without further comment.

Scully looked at it, and her eyes widened at the photograph on top. He was the spitting image of Darrell Kauthen. "Another clone?"

"Looks like it," Mulder agreed. "And I also got the name of the man that Dave was interviewing before he died. His name was Hal Kildan."

"Another of our happy corpses," Brian chipped in. He stood, all but radiating energy, making him seem to tower over Mulder all the more. "So where is this shrink?"

Mulder grimaced at the almost murderous gleam in Brian's eyes. "He's gone. Disappeared without a trace the day after they found David's body."

Scully just looked up, again accepting the inevitable.

Brian wasn't quite so accepting. "Damnit! So how do we get a line on these guys?"

The first thing we do is talk to Sal," Mulder said calmly. "Maybe she knows more about what's going on than she thinks."

* * *

_Menschner Resdience  
11:45 AM_

Sal answered the door sullenly, and Brian's heart nearly broke at the sight.

She was falling apart.

Her eyes were bloodshot from what had clearly been a very long night of drinking, and she smelled of strong cigarettes. When she saw him, standing there with Mulder and Scully, saw the pain in his eyes, she very nearly shut the door in his face.

"Sal, wait," Scully said quietly, moving to stand in front of Brian. "We need to talk about this. We think there's a way we can clear this thing up."

"Uh-huh," Sal said dully, inviting them in with an expansive gesture that showed she hadn't  _stopped_  drinking the night before. "Why would you bother?"

Mulder was amazed by his friend's transformation. He knew it hurt. He knew that she felt she had no more options left to her. But Sal Menschner had always been, first and foremost, a fighter. That she would simply sit back and let this happen to her was astounding--and it made him wonder if what had happened in Arizona would ever be over for her.

"Look, Sal," he said quietly, choosing the 'shock' route to try to get her to come out of it. "If you don't care about what happened to  _you,_  fine. But I've got one very close, very dead friend, and he's wrapped up in this, too. Now I want to find out why he died. And you're  _going_  to help."

She looked up at him blearily, anger fighting its way into her eyes. "Fine," she snapped back, dropping to her couch with a grunt for the pain in her stomach and hand. "What the  _hell_  can I help you with?"

Mulder sat down before her, his intensity never waning. He couldn't give her a chance to slip back into her despair. "We need to know everything you know about the operation. Were you the only agent out in the field on this one?"

"Only agent who isn't  _dead,_  yeah," she retorted meanly.

"Who else was in on it, Sal?" Brian asked, managing to keep his voice even.

"Hildar, Pretkovsky, Miller, Wilson..."

Scully had written down the names, though she wasn't sure what good it was going to do her. They had all been in the same position that Sal had found herself in just two short weeks ago--and she had only survived because Mulder had ruffled Goldman's feathers.

"Do you know the names of any of the men they were staking out?" Mulder asked.

"Of course not," she replied coldly. "I never got told the  _important_  things... Like the stuff that almost got me  _killed._ "

Sal didn't look as if she was going to say any more, and Brian looked askance at Mulder and Scully. Scully nodded her head, shooting a stern look at her partner, who seemed unwilling to just let this drop. But there didn't seem to be anything he could do for the young woman, and Scully didn't need this to become a shouting match. With an angry shrug of his shoulders, Mulder rose to follow her.

Sal seemed barely to notice as the two made their way out of her apartment, leaving her and Brian alone.

He sat down in front of her, taking her hands in his, a tender thumb running over the splint that encased her left. "You've made quite a mess of yourself, Sal-o-mine," he observed wryly.

" _They_  made a mess of me, Bri," she said dully, standing up and walking toward the deck.. "I didn't have a thing to do with it."

Brian followed her out, watching with troubled eyes while she pulled out a cigarette. He walked up next to her, a small smile trying to come over his face. "Can I have one?" he asked quietly.

Sal looked up at him for a moment, before dragging out her cigarette case again and handing him one. "They'll kill you, you know," she quipped as she held out her lighter.

"At least I'll die with a smile on my face," he replied, lighting up.

Sal snorted at that and kept smoking. "Well, as long as there's  _that,_ " she said angrily.

"Sal... What's going on?" Brian looked down at her, trying to meet her eyes. "Tell me."

She blew out a cloud of smoke, sitting gingerly in the lawn chair. Her stomach was hurting again--as much from the booze and the cigarettes as from the stitches. "It's just no use, is it, Bri?" she asked suddenly, turning to look up at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Fighting them... No matter how good your intentions, they're just waiting for a chance to slam you down again."

"Sal," he asked carefully. "I know you've got to go to these therapy sessions... Do you think--"

"Oh good," she broke in dryly. "Another person who thinks I'm nuts." She stood suddenly, walking to the edge of the deck, looking down at the street four floors below. "That just about makes it unanimous."

"I don't think you're crazy, Sal," Brian protested. "But what happened in Arizona--"

"Was my own damn fault," she whispered. "I knew it when I bitched out those faceless wonders at the hearing. I should have known I was getting in over my head..." She ignored the tears that started rolling down her face. "I should have known not to try to play in a league I'm too young for."

Brian came up behind her, wrapping loving arms around her stomach. "What can I do?"

"I don't know, Bri," she whispered tearfully. "I don't even know what  _I_  should do..."

* * *

_Washington, D.C.  
7:45 PM_

Mulder grabbed his phone, dialling Scully's number quickly. "Scully, it's me... Wilson's still alive."

Her voice held excitement. "Where?"

"Salt Lake City," Mulder replied. "I've got two tickets on the next flight. I'll be at your place in fifteen minutes."

* * *

The old man lit another cigarette, reaching for his phone. Menschner was alone in her apartment again, and the listening devices they'd planted there had told them that the FBI had gotten no information from her.

With a relaxed hand, he dialed her number. The waiting was over now. His operatives were certain that they knew how to get the information from her.

It was information she didn't even know she had, strangely enough. Information that was so very, very important to him and to his colleagues.

It took her three rings, but she finally picked up the phone...

* * *

Brian had left when she'd sobered up, leaving her with stern instructions to call him if she was in trouble. She wanted to. God, she wanted to tell him everything, but none of the words would come.

She was sorry now that she'd been so mean to Fox and Dana. They hadn't deserved that. She was just blowing off steam--and in entirely the wrong direction.

But the people she really wanted to get to would never be found...

She sighed at the injustice of it all, and walked out to the deck, lighting another cigarette....

* * *

Brian Callahan shifted in his seat, watching Sal walk to the edge of her deck, yet another cigarette falling under her match.

He'd been afraid to leave. She was... different somehow... frightening. If something were to happen to her because he hadn't been keeping an eye out...

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of her phone. He could hear it from his car, parked in the street below her window, and he saw her bend over to pick up the cordless that she'd left on the deck table. He pulled his binoculars out, trying to catch at least her side of the conversation. Beyond a clearly annoyed greeting for the person on the other end, there was none. She was simply listening to someone, her face growing strangely slack--almost shocked--as she heard what they had to say.

After a minute, she hung up the phone, grinding out her cigarette and walking back into the apartment.

He watched the entrance closely, unsurprised when she exited a few minutes later, striding quickly to her car and jumping in.

He waited a moment, sure that she was a bit ahead of him, before he pulled out into traffic to follow her.

* * *

_Salt Lake City Airport  
9:45 PM_

Mulder grabbed his carry-on, all but running from the plane. Scully followed at a more leisurely pace. "Mulder," she said when she had finally caught up with him. "We're not going to get there any faster with you rushing around like this."

He saw the truth in her words, and his pace was a bit less harried as they approached the rental car booth. Car keys in hand, they headed for the parking lot.

Mulder puzzled out the map for a moment, trying to at least get familiar with the main streets that they'd need to look for, while Scully drove them quietly out onto the highway.

"The apartment they put him up in is on 15th," Mulder said. "We need to get off at the sixteenth street exit, though."

Scully nodded, thinking as she drove. "Mulder," she said finally. "If all Sal knew were a few of the names of the other agents, what makes you think Wilson is going to know anymore?"

"He probably doesn't," Mulder agreed. "But at least we can let him know what's happened back in Washington."

"You think he doesn't already know?" she asked incredulously.

"I doubt Cancerman has bothered to call him."

"Unless he's working for Cancerman directly," Scully said cautiously. It was altogether possible. After all, aside from Sal, he was the only one of the operation's agents who was still alive.

"I've thought about it," Mulder admitted. Still, he couldn't get the idea out of his head that he had to, somehow, be able to save  _someone_  in this screwed up little plan.

Scully knew what he was thinking, and knew that both Dave Yul and Sal Menschner played significant roles in those thoughts. But she couldn't let his guilt over them cloud him to the possibility that they might be walking into a trap.

"I know, Scully," he said with a sudden smile, as if reading her thoughts. "I'll watch myself."

"You'd better," she warned.

* * *

_11:15 PM_

The apartment building was small, but nice. The foyer decorated in that ubiquitous Southwestern style, complete with wooden catii and howling wolves, all in soothing pastel colours. Mulder grimaced slightly at the decor as they headed for the elevator.

"Maybe I should redecorate my apartment like that," he murmured wryly.

"You'd have to  _decorate_  it first," Scully returned as they reached their floor.

As one, they took out their weapons, walking slowly down the deserted hallway, looking for Wilson's room. 659. Scully knocked quietly.

"Yeah?" came a gruff voice, very near the other side of the door.

Scully held up her badge to the peephole, sure that he was checking them out from there. After a moment, the chain slipped off the inside of the door, and it opened a crack.

The man who answered was young, his features clearly worried.

"What do you want?" he asked carefully.

"We're here to talk to you about Robert Goldman, Agent Wilson," Mulder replied.

At that, Wilson hissed angrily, all but yanking them into the apartment. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Wilson asked when he'd shut the door and replaced the chain. "Are you trying to get me  _killed?_ "

Mulder looked at the young man, surprised. "We weren't followed, Wilson."

"Who says you had to be followed to get me killed?" Wilson asked wryly, gesturing them into the main room of his tiny apartment. "They just  _know,_  these guys... They just know."

"You're aware, then, that Robert Goldman's been murdered?" Scully asked, getting down to business.

"Of course," Wilson snapped irritably. "And Minch, and Hildar--"

Scully shook her head at the name Minch. It was what the other lab rats called Sal Menschner. "Sal's still alive," she told him.

Wilson stared at her for a moment. "You're serious?" When she nodded, he collapsed onto the couch, sighing with relief. "We were sure they'd get to her, once they got Kauthen."

"Who?" Mulder asked. "Who got to Kauthen?"

Wilson looked up at him warily, standing with a sudden nervousness that set Mulder's teeth on edge. "Not here," the young man said, grabbing his coat. "Come on. Come with me."

* * *

 _Memorial Park_  
Salt Lake City  
12:32 AM

"I worked in the sci-crime lab, up until about six months ago," Wilson said quietly, his eyes always roving, looking for anything suspicious. "Then, I got reassigned to Goldman's unit."

Mulder nodded, and the young agent continued.

"He had me running tests on some weird kind of bacteria for the first couple of months--a cloned bacteria, with--"

"With a virus inside," Scully finished for him, dread building in her stomach.

Wilson simply nodded. "Yeah... That virus... Man, I'd never seen anything like it." He met Mulder's eyes, all but begging the man to disagree with him. "It couldn't have been from this planet, man... There's just no way."

To his chagrin, Mulder simply nodded again, making the younger man all the more upset. "I didn't know what they wanted me to look for, you know. They just said, 'find out everything you can'... So I did."

"And what did you find?" Scully asked.

"Part of it... God, part of it looked like it was  _human_  DNA... And the other part...." He trailed off, the memory still stirring him after all this time.

"How did you get started on this part of the operation?" Mulder asked after a moment.

"Oh... Goldman told me he had something he wanted me to do. After spending three months in the lab with that...  _thing_... I would have gone  _anywhere._ " He sat nervously on a park bench and continued his story.

"Goldman had this guy come in. A psychiatrist, he said. They wanted to see if I could... you know, if I could resist the hypnosis. Once they'd decided I passed, they briefed me and sent me here."

"What did they tell you that you were looking for?" Scully asked, sitting beside him, watching her partner as Mulder pulled back from them, thinking.

"Some doctor," Wilson replied. "He was killing people with hypnosis... People that thought--" he cut off, a smile appearing on his face before he continued. "People that thought they were 'abducted by aliens'." He laughed at the absurdity, but trailed off at the intense look in Mulder's eyes.

"What were you supposed to do when you found the doctor?" he asked.

Wilson watched the older agent as he spoke, a strange look on his face. "I was given this whole story about what kind of abductions I was talking about... You know, bright lights, little grey men, that sort of thing..." He looked at his hands. "Then, slowly, I was supposed to start feeding him this whole thing about the ships, and what they looked like, and what the 'aliens' were telling me..."

"And what were the aliens supposed to be telling you?" Mulder asked.

Wilson never had a chance to answer, for at that moment, a series of shots rang out, dropping Mulder to the ground on instinct. As he dropped, he saw the flash of a bullet as it struck the metal bench on which Scully and Wilson were sitting.

He held his breath as he watched Wilson jerk and fall to the ground.

With a strange gasp, Scully was right behind him...

* * *

_Washington, D.C.  
2:15 AM_

Brian had been following Sal since she'd left Baltimore hours ago. She'd done nothing but drive aimlessly around the streets of the capital for most of that time, and he was starting to wonder if he shouldn't just let her know he was there and get her to explain what she was doing.

But something stopped him, some vague idea that she had an exact plan here...

And an even more vague idea that she  _knew_  he was behind her.

He pulled off the side of the road as they neared the park again, sliding his car into the shadows behind the Lincoln Memorial, and watching her headlights as she continued on, back toward the Hill.

He'd just wait here, he thought. See if she came back this way. And if she wasn't back in half an hour,  _then_  he'd call her and get her to explain herself.

 

Forty minutes later, Brian fished his cellphone out of his pocket, dialing Sal's number.

She answered on the third ring. "Menschner."

At least she  _sounded_  normal. "Hey, it's me," he said quietly. "What are doing?"

Her voice held the same affection it always did when she was speaking to him, but it was distant, as if she wasn't quite all there. "I couldn't stand being cooped up in the apartment," she told him. "I just wanted to drive around."

"That's cool," he replied. "So where are you?"

"Jefferson Memorial," she said with a distracted laugh.

He joined in the mirth warily. "You drove all the way out to Washington?" he asked incredulously.

"I've been driving for hours," she replied. "Don't worry," she told him suddenly. "I'm sober. I just needed to get out and clear my head."

Listening to her voice, Brian was sure he'd been over-reacting. She did this often, actually, though he'd never been a direct observer of the famous "Menschner Wanderlust." But he'd had her call him from the park a few times, waking him from a sound sleep to tell him what the reflecting pool looked like at four in the morning.

From the distraction in her voice that phone call had obviously disturbed her, and she had simply felt the need to take off and ponder it.

He wanted to ask her what the phone call had been about, but that would mean revealing the fact that he'd been spying on her. If this really was a false alarm, she'd skin him alive for that.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. Wary, but no longer actively worried. "So how's ole Thomas?"

"Boring, as usual," she replied. "Listen, Bri... I wanted to say I'm sorry for this afternoon. I was a royal bitch."

"No more than usual," Brian quipped lightly.

"Oh thanks!" she snapped back good-naturedly. Brian straightened suddenly as he heard Sal pull the phone away from her mouth. "Yes, officer? ....No I'm sorry... Look I was just--" With that last phrase, her voice had become instantly panicked, and Brian was out of his car, gun drawn, the phone still at his ear, sprinting toward the Jefferson Memorial.

"God, Brian!" Sal called desperately, the fear in her voice enough to break his heart. As he neared the memorial, he no longer needed the phone to hear her screams. He turned a corner at a run, and slammed to a halt suddenly, as he saw two figures fighting in the darkness.

"FBI!" he called loudly, dropping the phone and raising his gun with both hands. "FREEZE!"

He never felt the bullet that took him down.

* * *

_Salt Lake City_

Mulder didn't even have time to return fire. As quickly as the shots had rung out, they were gone again, Leaving him in silence.

"Scully!" He called desperately, running toward the bench.

"I'm okay," she replied in a whisper, though she sounded far from it. He reached her, dropping to the ground beside her and fishing in his pocket for his flashlight.

Turning it on, he was surprised to see her holding her broken arm, the cast split open, blood running out from between the broken pieces of plaster.

"I'm okay," she repeated quickly, meeting his eyes to complete the lie. "What about Wilson?"

Mulder leaned past her, rolling Wilson over onto his back, feeling for a pulse that wasn't there. He turned back to her and shook his head.

Scully winced deeply as she stood, still trying to hold the cast together. It wasn't much, but it would protect her arm while they got to a hospital.

 

Mulder had been sitting in the waiting room for what felt like hours, as the emergency room staff saw to Scully. It had been a busy night, apparently, and Mulder felt lucky she'd been taken in immediately.

Of course, the badge had a lot to do with that, he thought with a gallow's smile.

Not wanting to take the time to explain the situation, Mulder had called the local bureau, asking them to take care of the investigation. He'd recieved no word back yet, but he'd call them later--after he was sure Scully was okay.

At that moment, she walked into the room, a splint on her arm now, instead of a cast. "It's broken--again," she told him, a wry grin on her face.

The bullet had hit the edge of the cast, she explained, ripping it open, but it had barely pentrated her skin. She'd rebroken the already weakened bone as she hit the ground. The splint would act as a cast, while making sure the flesh wound didn't get infected.

"What happened with Wilson?" she asked, as Mulder helped her with her coat.

He pulled out his cellphone as they headed for their rental car. "I'll find out... Hello, can I speak with John Galbraith?" he asked the woman on the other end of his phone.

"Agent Galbraith," he said after a moment. "This is Agent Mulder."

"Look, buddy," the other man said belligerently. "Posing as an FBI agent is a federal offense."

"Excuse me?" Mulder said angrily.

"I'm having this call traced," Galbraith said coldly. "You are in big trouble, my friend."

"Don't bother tracing it," Mulder told him, supplying the number. He also supplied his badge number, thinking that  _that_  might clear things up.

It cleared them up just fine. "All right, Mulder," Galbraith said angrily. "Then what the hell was that prank in the park?"

"Excuse me?" Mulder asked again. This guy had an awful time coming to the point.

"Well you called me and told me check out the park, so I did--figuring you were legitimate--which I guess you  _are_ \--but there's nothing there!"

Mulder stopped halfway to the car. "What?"

"You heard me," Galbraith returned angrily. "There's nothing there. No blood, no body, no bullets. What are you trying to pull?"

* * *

 _Mossey Residence_  
Washington, D.C.  
4:17 AM

Lynn Mossey jumped up from her bed, all but running for the bathroom. God, wasn't this supposed to called  _morning_  sickness? Why did hers always have to come in the middle of the night?

Her frantic movements woke her husband--as they always did. Oh well, it was his turn to feed baby Jennifer anyway, and the little terror would be up in half an hour, just like clockwork. He sighed. Maybe having another kid so soon after Jenny wasn't the best idea...

Still, he thought with an almost randy smile, it wasn't like they'd planned it.

He was startled by the phone. It had better be good, to be calling at 4:15 in the morning.

"Mossey," he announced, allowing a little of his irritation to show.

"Carl Mossey?" the woman on the other end asked professionally. "Your partner is Brian Callahan, of the FBI?"

Carl sat up, instantly worried, as his wife returned from the bathroom. "Yes?"

"This is Lieutenant Hutchison of the DCPD. Your partner's been found in Memorial Park, shot in the chest. It appears he's been the victim of a robbery attempt."

"Is he alive?" Carl asked quickly, recieving a worried look from his wife. He pulled the phone from his mouth and whispered quietly: "Brian's been shot."

"He's en route to DC General right now," the lieutnenant replied. "Do you have any idea what he might have been doing in the park at this time of night?"

"No," Carl answered briskly, rising to pull on a pair of jeans. "No, I don't have any idea. Look, Lieutenant, I have to get over to the hospital. My cellphone number is 555-9834. Please call me if you learn anything more."

"Of course, Agent Mossey," the woman replied.

What the  _hell_  had Brian gotten himself into now?

* * *

_Salt Lake City, UT_

Mulder had left Scully at the hotel to sleep off the pain pills she'd been given. The park was still quiet at five-thirty, though runners were already starting to appear. He made for the bench where he and Scully had questioned Wilson.

It wasn't even the same bench, he realised with a grim smile. There was no sign that there had been anything amiss--no blood stains on the grass, no shell casings, not even bits of the plaster from Scully's broken cast... And they'd even gone so far as to switch benches, to ensure that no information might be gathered from the metal that the bullets had struck.

He sat on the new bench, a little dazed, and thought things through. This thing was getting so complicated that it was frightening. As far as he could see, the group of clones was trying to amass information about abductees--and then eliminate the abductees, for fear that they'd pass on what they knew.

But what did they know? Wilson had been killed--presumably by his own superiors--before he could tell them what he had been told to leak to the clones. None of it made any sense! He knew that these clones were part of the vast conspiracy that he'd spent the past four years trying to uncover.

Maybe...

Maybe the government was trying to clean house. But that still didn't explain why the  _clones_  were looking for abductees in the first place!

He was still pondering that when his cellphone rang, a jarring sound in the early morning quiet. "Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me." Scully sounded worried. "Where are you?"

"Back at the park," he replied. "They took care of everything here, Scully," he told her ruefully. "They damn near vacuumed the place when we left."

"Mulder," Scully replied, seeming not to have heard a bit of what he said. "You've got to get over here. We have to get back to DC."

"Why?" Mulder asked, rising. "What happened?"

"Brian's been shot. Carl called. He says it's bad... And Mulder," she added, sounding defeated. "Sal's gone."

* * *

_Washington D.C. General Hospital  
12:15 PM_

Scully walked into the hospital room quietly, wincing at what she saw.

Brian Callahan lay unconscious in the bed, surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of different monitors, each beeping away to itself as they pronounced dubiously that he was still alive.

Carl Mossey sat next to him, staring off into space, his face unshaven, his eyes cold and worried.

"Carl?" Scully called quietly.

Mossey rose, turning to her. "Hey, Scully," he greeted her tiredly.

"How's he doing?" she asked, walking to the foot of the bed and taking hold of Brian's chart.

"A little better, they say," he replied carefully. "The bullet nicked an artery and punctured a lung. Cracked a rib on its way out..." Carl sighed, sitting again, exhausted by his vigil. "Do you know what he might have been doing, Scully?" he asked. "I haven't talked to him for a couple of days... I've been taking some time off to help Lynn out with Jenny."

"I'm not sure," Scully told him truthfully, putting the medical chart away. Brian was better than he had been when they'd brought him in, but he still wasn't doing well. It had apparently taken time to find him, and he'd lost a lot of blood...

"Did they find any clues at the crime scene?" she asked.

"Not much," Carl replied with a sigh. "They found a couple of bums who  _swear_ that they saw him running to help a lady who was being mugged, but..." he trailed off, indicating the lack of strength of those witnesses.

"Still no word from Sal?"

Carl shook his head. "You think he could have been out there with her?"

"I don't know."

Scully's cellphone rang at that moment, and she turned away from Carl to answer it. "Scully."

"Scully, it's me... Sal's car was found near the site of Brian's shooting," he told her gravely. "I talked to a Lieutenant Hutchison at DCPD, and she said that a couple of witnesses saw a man and a woman fighting by the memorial when Brian was shot." Scully could vaguely hear the sound of his car starting up. "I'm going to go over to Sal's apartment--see if there's anything I can find."

"I've got a key," Scully said quickly. "I'll meet you there." She hung up, turning to Carl. "I've got to go, Carl. Give me a call if anything changes, okay?"

Mossey nodded sadly as she headed out, hoping to finally find some answers.

* * *

_Menschner Residence  
1:02 PM_

Scully unlocked the door, greeted by a piteously crying Psycho, who headed immediately to his food bowl, after glaring at her hungrily.

"I'd better feed him," she said, watching her partner nod as he walked quietly around the apartment.

"Hey, Scully," Mulder called from Sal's bedroom after a few moments. "Sal never unpacked her bags from Arizona."

Scully placed the bowl of cat food on the ground, petting Psycho briefly before heading toward the bedroom where Mulder was investigating.

Sal had brought two huge bags back from her stay in Rattleby, and Mulder had both of them open, taking up the entire surface of Sal's queen-size bed.

There were the usual things; underthings, shorts, t-shirts. But Scully called Mulder's attention to an object that had lain hidden under layers of clothing in the second suitcase. "Here's her tape player," she told him, opening the carriage. "And there's still a tape in it."

 

The tape started with the sound of Kauthen entering Sal's apartment, the agent's voice unnaturally shy as she asked him if he wanted tea. They talked quietly for a few minutes, before lapsing into a long period of silence.

The first part of the following hypnosis session was unremarkable, full of cryptic remarks from Sal about a bright light and what the aliens had said. The second part was frightening.

"Sally," Kauthen said, his voice somehow  _more_  soothing that it had been. "You know how dangerous this information is, don't you?"

"Yes," came Sal's voice, strangley calm and robotic.

"And you know that no one can ever know what has happened to you?"

"Yes."

"Sally, I want you to do something for me... It's very important..."

"All right."

"And I promise that it won't hurt you... You won't feel any pain... Do you have a gun?"

Scully gasped slightly.

"No... Not here."

"Not here," they heard Kauthen whisper. "Do you have a knife?" he asked more loudly, in that strange rolling voice.

"Yes."

Mulder met his partner's eyes, mirroring the sick feeling he saw there.

"If I were to call you, Sally, and use the words 'Before Manhattan', you must be ready to use that knife... Do you understand?"

Sal seemed to hestitate.

"Sally," Kauthen said again after a moment, a slight edge to his otherwise soothing voice. "This is very important... None of the evidence must remain... Do you understand?"

It took a moment, and Sal's voice was tiny, as she said quietly, "Yes."

Kauthen paused a few moments, and when he spoke, there was a tinge of suspicion to his voice. "Sally... What will you do when I leave today?"

Sal's voice was strong again. "Listen to the tapes."

"What tapes?" Kauthen asked worriedly.

"The tapes of the session..."

Mulder and Scully listened as Sal told Kauthen everything she knew about the operation. About how it was her first field operation, about what Goldman had told her about the crimes she was investigating. She hadn't told them as much, and they hung carefully on every word.

"You'd been in Michigan... Killed all those people... I was supposed to collect evidence on you... The tapes were to be given to my superiors when I returned to Washington..."

"But you know you can never return to Washington now, don't you, Sal?" he asked coldly.

"Yes."

That seemed to satisfy Kauthen. "Sal... Who else is working for your superiors?"

"Fred Wilson... John Pretkovsky... Kendra Woodard..."

Mulder's head snapped up, as he grabbed for his phone. "Yeah, Danny? It's Mulder... I need you to track down an agent named Kendra Woodard for me... Make it quick... Bye."

By this time, Sal had given Kauthen all he wanted. "Salome," the psychiatrist said quietly. "You will forget all we spoke about in this session, do you understand? You can never remember it..." he paused. "Unless given the code words 'Maiden voyage', you will never remember... Do you understand?"

"Yes...."

Scully pressed stop on the machine, shaking off the strange feeling that just listening to Kauthen's calming tones had engendered in her.

Mulder stood silently for a few minutes, trying to piece it all together. "So where is she now?" he suddenly asked of no one.

"Mulder..." Scully paused a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order. "You really think Cancerman's behind this?"

He nodded, turning to her, the sick certainty in her eyes telling him all she wanted to say. She voiced it anyway, chilling him to the bone.

"Then that's who's got her."

"But  _why?_ "

"Maybe Kauthen let her know more than he should have during those hypnosis sessions," Scully said with an exhausted shrug. "Maybe they at least  _think_  he did."

Mulder nodded, jumping slightly as his phone rang. "Mulder... Yeah, Danny..." His eyes darkened. "You're sure? ...Okay, thanks, Danny... Bye."

"Kendra Woodard?" Scully asked.

"She was found dead in an apartment in Santa Cruz two weeks ago." He looked at his partner angrily. "She'd slit her own throat."

* * *

The old man smoked thoughtfully, watching through the one-way mirror as Salome Menschner was interrogated. It wasn't going well. Apparently, Kauthen had introduced some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion that made her unable to recall what he had told her.

She was the first of the clones' hypnosis subjects that the syndicate had been able to get its hands on. The abductees were easy. They didn't have any information that wasn't locked in the very cells of their bodies. The syndicate had been used to finding answers with these people, and they hadn't expected something like this. They had no way to know what the clones knew about their plans, and no way to figure out the opponent's plans, either.

Nothing seemed to work. Drugs, hypnosis, very... mild... torture... She was one very closed book, he thought angrily.

He was disturbed from his musings by the ringing of his phone. Picking it up, he smoked away calmly as he listened to what his operative had to say.

With a cold smile, he hung up, and called his lackey over to him.

The words he wrote down on the paper he gave the young man shouldn't have meant anything to him...

_Maiden Voyage_

But he knew, as he sat back confidently, watching his lackey enter that interrogation room, that those words meant the world...

* * *

 _J. Edgar Hoover Building_  
Washington, D.C.  
September 30, 1996  
4:12 AM

Fox Mulder rubbed his eyes tiredly, refusing to acknowledge the time. He sat poring over countless files of abduction cases, looking for  _something_  to bring this case together. He'd called in every favour he still had outstanding, and had amassed a collection of files that, combined with his own X-Files, probably covered every single abduction case for the last twenty years.

He was looking for patterns. Patterns that would tell him whether his hunch back in Salt Lake had been true. Patterns that would prove that there was not one group abducting these people, but two.

He came upon a case in Wyoming. 1989. A young woman, Sandra Casien, had been walking home from a party in the suburbs of Cheyenne, when she disappeared. She was returned eight days later, and showed signs of experimentation, but could not remember what had happened to her.

Her father was a wealthy man--and a firm believer in UFO experiences. He called on a well-known psychiatrist at the University in Laramie, and asked him to try using hypnoregression therapy on his daughter. The results were... puzzling.

She remembered the ship, remembered the tests... But she also remembered an army base... And soldiers... And a long, shiny room...

Mulder shook his head. He knew the long, shiny room--he'd nearly been blown up in one... And he also remembered the ship, its lights flashing mockingly at him as they took his sister.

But he didn't remember them together.

His mind almost snapped as he saw the pattern. There  _were_  two groups at work here. There had to be. And the clones were working for the side that had the ships, that performed the tests.

And Cancerman had the railway cars.

It all made a kind of sick sense, all of a sudden. The aliens actually knew what they were doing--they had the clones! As he recalled, the human-made clones, like Dr. Berube's friend, hadn't been terribly viable. But the Gregors...? They had to be from the other group.

And maybe the syndicate had been... reacquiring these abductees, trying to figure out where they had gone wrong, and where their opposition had gone _right..._

Maybe that was why they'd taken Sal--to find out if the clone had let anything slip about the pieces of the puzzle that the syndicate had yet to put together.

He wondered if Sal actually  _did_  know something.

He wondered when--or  _if_ \--they'd give her back...

* * *

 _Scully Residence_  
Alexandria, VA  
6:43 AM

Scully looked around her apartment once more before leaving for the day. It had been five days now, and there was still no word about Sal Menschner. Brian was still in a coma, trying to come around, albeit slowly... He didn't even know she was gone.

And she  _was_  gone, Scully thought sadly. Gone like Mulder's sister was gone...

Gone, very probably, like Missy was gone.

Scully had a standing order at every area hospital to have her called if a Jane Doe matching Sal's description turned up. The morgues were the only places worth looking, she knew. The syndicate would never let her live, whether she told them what they wanted to know or not.

And just what  _did_  they want to know? she thought angrily, as she locked the door behind her, heading for her car. And how was it that they thought Sal would know?

Her mind battled the unanswerable questions as she headed for Baltimore in the chilly morning air. She had to feed Sal's cat. Wouldn't do to have him starving to death before Sal came back--

 _Don't do this to yourself,_  she cautioned firmly.  _Agonising about it isn't going to help._  But not thinking about it was impossible.

She needed to believe that, somehow, Sal would be returned. It had happened to the syndicate's captives before--she herself was living proof of that...

But the idea of seeing Sal as Mulder must have seen  _her,_  lying lifeless in the ICU, tubes trailing from her body, made Scully even more sick.

It might almost be better if...

* * *

She walked out of the elevator quietly, sunk in her thoughts, almost not hearing Sal's cat as he yowled from the other side of the door. Closing her eyes, Scully opened her friend's door, wishing that, just this once, she could believe the unbelievable--Believe that Sal would be right there before her, smiling at her, cigarette in hand.

When Scully opened her eyes, she had to blink twice before the unbelievable registered.

Sal Menschner lay on the couch before her, her cat standing on the floor beside her, yowling.

"Sal?" Scully asked, incredulous, as she approached her friend. When she got no answer she knelt carefully beside the couch, reaching a tentative hand out to touch Sal's wrist.

The pulse was faint, frighteningly so. But she was alive! With trembling hands, Scully grabbed for her cellphone.

* * *

_Baltimore General Hosptial  
9:13 AM_

Mulder strode quickly into the waiting room, eyes roving among the many people there, until they fell on his partner.

"How is she?" he asked, taking the seat beside her.

Scully shrugged tiredly. "They don't know yet. They can't even figure out what's wrong with her."

"Is it like..." Mulder trailed off, unsure.

But Scully just shook her head. "No, she doesn't show any signs of tampering. Whatever they did to her, it... wasn't what happened to me."

Mulder nodded, turning quickly when he heard Scully's name being called. They rose as one to face the doctor.

"How is she?" Scully asked, worried by the puzzled look on the doctor's face.

"She seems to be doing all right," he replied, sounding as if a miracle had just occurred. "The wound in her stomach is pretty badly infected--that damaged hand isn't much better. She's got a mild concussion, a couple of minor bruises and abrasions."

"That doesn't sound like she's all right," Mulder said dubiously.

"Well, considering her pulse rate and breathing when she came in," the doctor said quietly. "I'd say it's downright remarkable." He shook his head. "We didn't really need to do anything for her. Once we hooked up the EKG and started trying to give her oxygen, she just seemed to come back on her own."

Scully had a theory that rivaled some of Mulder's that might account for Sal's stunning recovery. But she'd wait to pursue it. Right now, she just wanted to see her friend.

"Is she awake?"

The doctor shook his head. "No, but she's getting there. I've had her admitted to a private room on the third floor. You can go sit with her if you'd like?"

* * *

_12:09 PM_

Sal woke with a start, wondering where the hell she was. She looked around frantically until her gaze fell on Dana Scully.

"Hey, Sal," Dana said gently. "How are you feeling?"

"Where am I?" Sal asked, a bit of panic in her voice.

"You're at Baltimore General."

"Why?" Sal seemed to be getting more agitated by the second.

Dana's eyes narrowed. "What's the last thing you remember, Sal?"

Sal's eyes glazed slightly as she tried to recall. "Brian had just left my apartment," she said quietly, turning to her friend with fear in her eyes. "What happened?"

"You don't remember leaving your apartment?" Scully asked, frowning when Sal shook her head. "You drove into D.C.," she prompted. "Brian said you got a phone call?"

Sal just looked at her, feeling her pulse racing in her veins. Dana still hadn't told her what had happened--and she had a feeling that it was something terrible.

"I don't remember any of that, Dana," she cried angrily. "Now, are you going to tell me what happened, or not?"

Scully leaned in, taking a firm hold of Sal's hand as she told her about the shooting and her subsequent disappearance. Sal was shaking by the time she was done.

"Where's Brian?" she asked tearfully.

"He's in D.C.," Scully replied quietly. "Carl's with him."

"Is he going to be okay?"

Scully nodded, trying to make Sal believe what she wasn't sure she believed herself. "He'll be fine, Sal. When they let you out of here, we can go to see him."

Sal just nodded, thinking silently for a few minutes.

When she finally spoke, her voice was tiny. "Dana... I should remember, shouldn't I?" The look in her eyes was familiar. Scully had had it for months after she'd been returned. She wished she had more answers for her friend, but the only words she could think to say would have been no comfort:

_Maybe it's better that you don't know..._

* * *

 _DC General_  
October 2, 1996  
9:45 AM

Sal Menschner walked quietly into the hospital room, holding her breath until she saw Brian's gentle smile.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Hi." Brian looked her up and down for a moment. She stood straighter now, as her stomach wound healed, and her hand, still splinted, sported fewer bandages. He'd missed some things, obviously.

With a sad grin, Sal sat beside him. "How are you feeling?"

He flashed his randiest leer. "Like I wish this bed was big enough for both of us."

She smiled coyly at that, though it didn't last. "I didn't think you were ever going to wake up," she told him tearfully.

"Oh, Sal," he whispered tenderly. "Come on, it's okay. I'm all right."

"You're not," she returned softly. "It's my fault."

Brian's eyes went suddenly hard. "And how do you figure that?" he asked almost coldly. "Did you  _ask_  that guy to attack you?"

A shiver ran down Sal's spine. For all she knew, given the questionable sanity of her actions lately, she might very well have.

But if she did, she sure as hell didn't remember it...

Brian reached out a hand, grasping her good one gently. "It's okay, Sal."

She nodded smartly, shaking off the terrible feeling that seemed to linger on and on. As she looked at him fondly, she remembered the news she'd been waiting four days to tell him.

"There'll be someone from the OPC here to see you, now that you're finally awake."

Brian looked at her strangely. "The OPC?" His shooting hadn't even  _technically_ been FBI related. Why would the OPC need to see him?

"Yeah," she ducked her head shyly. "The Terror finally got them to review my case. He's not sure, but he thinks there's chance that they'll let me back in--though I don't know what good a one-handed pathologist is going to do them." She flashed him a sardonic grin. "And it's all provided, of course, that I develop a case of selective amnesia and forget that the Rattleby thing ever happened." She shivered slightly. "I don't think  _that_  should be any problem..."

* * *

The old man at the Pentagon simply nodded when he got word of Sal Menschner's miraculous recovery--well, not miraculous, really. It was amazing what post-hypnotic suggestions could do. They could make a woman keep herself nearly comatose for hours... And just as suddenly, when she was sure she was in a place that could care for her injuries, make her snap out of it.

He smiled slowly in the darkness of his basement office. The information that the opposition had gotten from Menschner was insignificant. But the pieces of the puzzle that  _Kauthen_  had let slip in those hypnosis sessions had proven very, very interesting.

It seemed the good doctor couldn't help but try to lead his patient, and the promptings he'd given "Sally" had been enough to tell the syndicate's own doctors where they might have gone wrong in their experiments.

It was ironic that the opposition was providing them with so much information. Between the subjects that the syndicate had managed to reappropriate from some of the opposition's bases, and the information that Kauthen's files and Meschner's "therapy sessions" had revealed, the old man was confident that, someday soon, the syndicate's experiments would finally begin to bear fruit.

Meanwhile, he'd also gained some valuable insight into the outside players in this game. That Menschner had been quietly amassing a collection of... interesting tidbits... about the overall picture, was unsurprising. He'd been watching her sleep her way to information for a few years now.

What was surprising was the  _lack_  of information that she seemed to think Agent Mulder possesed. If he was truly so far from the truth, then the old man's promise to a dying friend might be safe.

"You wouldn't... hurt him, would you?" his friend had asked, fear for his son shining through his coarse irritation.

"I've protected him this long, haven't I?"

 

The old man blew out smoke thoughtfully. Mulder might still have his uses--as Menschner  _surely_  would, once the OPC gave in and put her back where the old man could keep an eye on her. And if the syndicate could only keep Mulder from finding  _proof_  of the truth... It might not be so wrong to let him  _think_  he knew it.

For the truth in this silent war was more complex than an idealistic young man like Fox Mulder could ever imagine. This war, which had raged since that first ship came down some fifty years ago, was something only a man who had lived through it could believe.

And the old man planned to live to see its end--and his own victory...

* * *

_The End_


End file.
